


I Could Know You Better

by MarbleAide



Category: DCU (Animated), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bonding, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4560819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarbleAide/pseuds/MarbleAide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim and Kon are trapped under a building and realize they don't really know each other like they might should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Could Know You Better

**Author's Note:**

> So, keep in mind that this is in the world of the Young Justice cartoon wherein Tim and Kon don't really interact together, so I tried to amend that and finally have them getting together (totally a prequel to them ACTUALLY getting together, but that's a different story entirely).

His ears are ringing and, for a moment, he can’t remember why. Everything around him is pretty dark. His eyes burn from dust and he’s not sure if they’re focusing properly yet. His head hurts. But, beyond that, his leg hurts and from the horrible throb that races up his body with every pound of his heart, Tim can determine that it’s probably broken.

The ringing gives way to a soft voice that, over a few seconds, grows stronger. It’s muffled and fuzzy until it’s not and he realizes the syllables are his name being called.

“Rob? Robin? Come on—Rob, you awake?”

Tim turns his head to the side with a little bit of struggle, looks up and through the darkness can see a pair of eyes staring down at him, an unearthly blue that nearly glows in the dark.

“Oh,” he says, suddenly remember what happened, where he was, and who he was with. “Superboy.” His voice is cracked, throat dry as he thinks there’s more dust in his mouth then spit right now.

“Yeah, it’s me. You okay?”

Conner’s face comes more in to view as Tim’s eyes adjust to the darkness around them. He looks concerned, jaw clenched and lips pressed into a thin line. It’s a common expression for Conner, but normally it’s never so focused on Tim himself.

Tim stops stares at him long enough to take a breath and attempt to wiggle his toes. Immediately, he hisses and tries his hardest not to jerk his body as the hot pain seers up his spine. He tries to focus on Batman’s voice in his head, telling him to breathe, breathe through it.

“Leg’s broken,” He says once he knows his voice is evened out again. “Left leg, shin most likely by the feeling. Don’t think I can walk right now.”

Conner’s nodding as he looks down towards Tim’s leg. Tim knows he doesn’t have the x-ray vision of Superman, but it feels like he’s trying really hard right now to obtain it. “You wouldn’t be doing much walking right now anyway,” Conner says after a moment of staring at Tim’s leg, his eyes coming back up to his face. “We’re sort of trapped right now.”

“Trapped?” Tim parrots, then looks around again and remembers what happened, where they are, and, “Oh. Right.”

He’s honestly lucky to be alive, Tim thinks. He shouldn’t have gone into the building without a full sweep, not when dealing with Deathstroke. It was a damned trap—clear of Deathstroke, but not his damned bombs. The entire building came down around them and Conner’s the only reason Tim woke up from it.

Right now they’re trapped, holed up in a pocket of rubble and by the looks of it, Tim’s pretty happy Conner had the foresight to not start attempting to punch their way out. By the look of it all, the entire building is on top of them and any wrong shift in rubble could send thousands of tons of metal and concrete down on their heads. Conner might survive that, but Tim’s a totally different story.

He can piece together parts of it all now—Conner grabbing him, protecting him from the worst of the blast and crumbling building, but they got pushed apart and a large chunk of wall fall down on Tim’s leg. He’s not sure if the pain made him pass out or if something hit his head (by the headache he had, probably the latter), but Tim’s not entirely sure how much time had passed between now and then. He’s not entirely hungry, but he’s definitely thirsty, so it probably hadn’t been more than an hour or two. The concrete slab that had crushed his leg lay nearby looking as innocent as ever, which meant Conner must have removed it at some point of Tim being unconscious.

Tim sighed.

“You informed everyone else?” He asked, his head hurting too much to work a telepathic link right now and was actually glad when he couldn’t hear anyone else in his head at the moment.

“Everyone’s been informed, all the other teams pulled back. Aqualad is working on a rescue mission now and, by the sound of it, they’re trying to dig through it all without having it collapse on top of us. It should only be a few hours, if that.”

“Hopefully we don’t run out of air before that or some other bomb goes off.” Tim grumbles out, mostly to himself, as he shifts, biting his tongue hard as he sat up, the groan of pain not quite leaving his throat as he pulled his body into a sitting position, trying to get as comfortable as possible and shift his leg in the manner that hurt the least.

Conner is watching him the entire time, body tense as if wanting to help, but not knowing how. His mouth keeps opening and closing, wanting to say something, but never finding the words.

It occurs to Tim right then that they haven’t interacted all that much, ever. Tim’s been on the team for a little over two years now, but there’s always been a sort of wall up between him and Conner. There’s always been a difference between the founding team and their successors—less of a friendship and more of a mentorship. It made sense, given the age difference, their experiences, the fact that Conner had his friends and Tim had his own. The two were barely ever put on the same team together, let alone hang out on the weekends.

And here the two were now, trapped in a destroyed building together for who knows how long.

“Sorry, by the way.” Tim starts up after the sudden silence starts to grow uncomfortable, feels the need to apologize for something. “For getting us into this mess. I should have made Kid Flash go through and—“

Conner cuts him off. “This wasn’t your fault, Rob.” There’s a faint smile on his lips, a reassurance in the darkness. “None of us could have predicted Deathstroke would have—“

“I should have. I was the leader, I should have—”

“Nightwing’s right, you know.” Tim’s head snapped up, blinking through the pain as Conner continued to smile at him. “You worry way too much.”

Tim’s first reaction is to say ‘I do not’ because normally that’s what he says—but normally it’s Dick and Bart telling him that. Not Conner. Not Conner who he always figures is serious and intense and doesn’t smile unless one of the original members is in the room or he’s playing with Wolf or Sphere. Not that Tim stares often—he doesn’t or…doesn’t admit that he does, but it’s easier to admit seeing as he stares at everyone, normally.

And right now, Conner’s the only one there to stare at. It’s easier to do now as his eyes have fully adjusted to the dim lighting of their little hole.

Conner looks like he always does—worried, brow drawn together, jaw sharp, eyes bright, shoulders broad and Tim can see more of his collar, his chest, seeing as his shirt is torn slightly and there’s dirt smudged along his skin here and there. Tim doesn’t blush, but he does bite at his lip.

“Conner. Do you…do you ever feel weird,” Tim licks his lips, refusing to take back his words. “Calling me Robin when I’m well…you know, not him?”

It’s a strange question, Tim knows, but it’s always been on his mind. The change in person, but not really a change in costume. He always wonders how they all feel—with Bart being Kid Flash, Jaime being Blue Beetle, Tim being Robin. At least, he thinks, it might be a little easier seeing as the predecessors for Bart and Jaime aren’t really… it’s a morbid thought, but it might help in the confusion. Though, technically speaking, Tim did pick up a dead boy’s uniform too. (Jason doesn’t get mentioned around the team a lot. Tim wonders if that’s just an unspoken rule or because of something else, either way it makes him still feel sick a little.)

Tim can see the smile on Conner’s lips falling slightly and suddenly his intense blue eyes are looking away from Tim.

“I—you know, you’re one of the only ones who calls me Conner all the time, right?” Tim blinks. He’d never really thought about that. “Everyone else, it’s usually ‘Kon’ or even ‘Superboy’, but you—“

“I figure we’re just not that close.” Tim blurts out, interrupting this time. He shrugs his shoulders a little bit, doesn’t look at Conner now. “Kon’s a nickname, right? Or it’s your true name. It just never feels right. To call you that when we don’t aren’t that familiar or close.”

Conner blinks in the dark, then Tim more so hears then sees him shifting, moving around so suddenly he’s sitting beside Tim, their sides brushing together, and Tim’s only aware of how wide Conner is compared to him, how warm and broad and solid.

“We’ve got some time, I figure,” Conner says, his voice deeper sounding now that he’s right next to Tim, louder. “Think we could fix that.”

—

Conner likes when things are quiet, but complete silence unnerves him. He doesn’t actually like small spaces and openly admitted it with a smile even though Tim grew concerned over the fact that they had an entire building coming down around them. He prefers when M’gann over cooks her cookies and taking napes with Wolf in the summers is one of his favorite things. He even talked about when he got to go visit Ma and Pa Kent for the first time—how he slept in an overly soft bed with wore quilts over top of him and patterned wall paper all around, the smell of grass and hay heavy in the air and how he felt like this was the next best thing to home besides the mountain.

Tim talks about juggling a mask and a normal life—about handling Batman and handling his own dad. He talks about his mom dying and how he’s not entirely sure he mourned for her properly, because he still thinks about her at night and feels sad, but there’s never been many tears. He talks about being the third person to hold the name Robin and how he fought to get where he is—how he still doubts himself at points even though he’s officially passed Jason in living longer. When Conner—Kon—starts looking at him with what Tim thinks is close to pity, he changes the subject.

They talk about tv shows and food and other members of the team up until Tim’s suddenly leaning against Kon’s shoulder and can’t seem to lift his head back up. He’s cold and sweating and too hot all at the same time. He knows he has a fever, doesn’t say anything until Kon’s doing it himself. He knows Kon can see his temperature growing hotter and nearly sighs with pleasure with the touch of Kon’s hand on his forehead, warm skin now feeling cool against his own.

“You’re running too hot.” Kon’s voice has an edge of panic in it and all Tim can do is smile, his eyes drooping and he wants to sleep.

“I think the air’s running thin too.” Tim replies. He doesn’t laugh, but it’s close. “Got to know each other a little too much.” His smile falls. “I’m tired, but I know I shouldn’t fall asleep.”

Tim blinks and he knows it’s for a long time, because when he opens his eyes again Kon’s face is staring right at his, so close Tim can feel when he breathes.

“Don’t fall asleep, Tim.”

He likes the way his voice sounds on Kon’s lips, but figures it’s something terribly inappropriate to say right now. He’ll blame it easily on his head and lack of oxygen and pain if it slips out.

“You could get out still.” Tim mutters out, not really realizing it. “You’ve been away from the sun for a bit, but you could still fly out, I figure. If you wanted to.”

He blinks again and it’s not so much a blink anymore, because this time he just doesn’t open his eyes. They’re too heavy, he’s too tired, everything hurts. He thinks the feeling on his shoulder is Kon grip it and the other is his hand against his cheek. It feels nice, but it’s hard to focus on that feeling alone, but he tries anyway.

“Hey, Tim, come on.” Kon’s saying, his voice is so loud, but growing distant. “I’m with you, okay?” He rubs his thumb across Tim’s cheek and Tim leans into it. “Always.”

—

When Tim wakes up, he’s in the infirmary of Mount Justice, which is actually surprising because he expects to be in the Batcave. Batman is there though, Dick too with Babs right at his side. There’s spots in his vision until he clears them away and turns his head to look at them all.

“Hey, kid,” Dick is smiling, though there’s a level of sadness too it. “We were scared there for a while.”

“Sorry,” Tim grounds out, can’t help but couch until Babs is at his side, helping him sit up and pressing a glass of water to his lips that tastes like the best thing ever right now. He drinks until there’s no more left and still it’s not enough, but he puts the glass down anyway. “Promise it won’t happen again.” He says that more so to Batman then anyone else, but Batman’s not looking at him with some disappointed scowl.

There’s a moment of silence before the cowl is removed, the mask of Batman giving way to Bruce and Tim’s grateful for it. Bruce looks shaken in a way that he thinks only members of their family could ever tell, looks relieved and worried all at the same time. 

“We’ll deal with the situations other outcomes later. Right now we’re just happy you’re…” Bruce’s voice trails off, but he doesn’t need to say the rest. He’s glad Tim didn’t turn out to be like Jason. He’s glad he’s not holding a body. He’s glad there’s not another case being put up in the Batcave and not another memorial in the mountain.

Tim tries to smile, but it hurts as his lips crack. “How did—“

“Kon saved you,” Dick cuts in, a smile on his lips now. “We couldn’t get to you fast enough, couldn’t risk the structure collapsing on you two before we could dig you out, but apparently he got desperate. Didn’t think you’d,” Dick pauses, looks away, and Tim can fill in the rest just like he can with Bruce. “He flew you out. Protected you as best he could and got out. He saved your life, Tim.”

“Where’s Kon—“

“Here. Right here.”

Tim jerks which makes him dizzy for a second, eyes following the voice and focusing on the form sitting in the corner, hunched over and looking as tired as Tim’s ever seen him. He’s still wearing the dirty, ripped, clothes from their mission. Tim wonders how long he’s been asleep now, seeing as he’s cooked up to an IV and his leg’s been set into a cast. Long enough that Tim’s starving and long enough that Superboy looks tired.

Tim can’t help but smile. “You didn’t leave, did you?”

Kon smiles back. “Said I was with you. Meant it.”

Tim feels hi s chest grow tight and his cheeks grow a little warm. It’s probably going to turn into a problem, but right now all he wants is to keep Kon as close as possible for as long as he’s allowed. That and sleep some more.

“Still be here when I wake up again?”

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving.”


End file.
